ROB­BER HELD IN TALOJA, STOLEN BIKES, PHONES RE­COV­ERED

A 21-year-old man from Pan­vel, who used to rob bik­ers at knife-point on de­serted roads, has been ar­rested by the Taloja po­lice.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, Ki­ran Patil, a res­i­dent of Chind­ha­ran vil­lage would tar­get the bik­ers at night and flee with their bikes, cash and other valu­ables. Act­ing on a tip-off, the po­lice laid a trap at Ton­dre vil­lage on Sun­day and ar­rested him.

They have also re­cov­ered five stolen bikes, 10 mo­bile phones and some knives and masks from him.

“Dur­ing in­ter­ro­ga­tion, we have learnt that the ac­cused was also in­volved in a house break-in case. He had stolen a DVD player and cash from a flat in Taloja MIDC on Jan­uary 9. We had been search­ing for him for the past sev­eral months and fi­nally man­age to ar­rest him at Pan­vel,” said a po­lice of­fi­cer from Taloja po­lice sta­tion.

“We think the ac­cused has crim­i­nal records. We are now try­ing to trace the other peo­ple in­volved with him. He is now in our cus­tody for five more days,” he said.

When asked if the ac­cused com­mit­ted sim­i­lar crimes in the other ar­eas such as Vashi, Kopar Khairane, Nerul and Ra­bale too, the of­fi­cer said, “We are now check­ing with the of­fi­cers of those po­lice sta­tions. But have not found any such records so far. Our in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on.”